By Jordan Hansen
So Iowa drew Florida for the Outback Bowl.
The Hawkeyes rarely spend a lot of time playing SEC teams, so it will certainly be a nice change of pace. Anyways Florida isn’t an exactly an unknown team to most people who pay even a little attention to college football, but all the same, here’s a couple things to know about the Gators.
Head coach: Jim McElwain (2nd year at Florida, 18-8)
For 26 years, McElwain bounced around as an assistant coach.
His career started with Eastern Washington, a Football Championship Series school, where he played quarterback from 1980-83. After a year spent as a graduate assistant, he spent the next seven years as the quarterbacks and wide-receiver coach at the school.
McElwain spent some time at Montana State before landing his first Division-1 job at Louisville in 2000. That led to a two-year stint at Michigan State, where he coached wide receivers and special teams.
After a year spent in the NFL with the Oakland Raiders as a quarterback coach and another season spent as the offensive coordinator at Fresno State, Alabama head coach Nick Saban came calling. In his second year (the 2009 season), he won a national championship.
Two years later, McElwain won another. In 2012, he finally got a chance to coach a team — Colorado State. Three seasons later, he had won 10 games and was one of the hottest names on the coaching market.
Last season, he took over a Florida program desperate for someone to return it to its former glory. He won 10 games behind a fairly good defense, but the Gators didn’t show up in a 41-7 beating at the hands of Michigan in the Citrus Bowl.
He’ll enter the Outback Bowl 8-4 and in need of a win. Two bowl losses in a row don’t look real great for a team that expects to contend on a regular basis for a national title.
What do they do well? Pretty simple — defense
Florida gives up fewer than 300 yards per game.
Iowa is 1-4 in games this season in which it did not get to 300 yards of offense. This will be a battle, and defense seems as though it will be important in this game. Florida’s strong defense is a philosophy left over from the Will Muschamp days.
McElwain is known as something of an offensive wiz, and it would stand to reason his excellence in the area is one of the reasons he got hired in the first place. But he still has shown he can coach the defense up pretty well.
The Gators will also make a team make bad plays. They’re third in the SEC with 30 sacks and tied for fifth with 13 interceptions. That’s a good defense, but we’ll save the extended breakdowns for a little closer to the bowl.
They also start a former Purdue quarterback or Jack Del Rio’s kid
Do you like quarterback controversies? Well, Florida is like one big one.
Luke Del Rio (son of Oakland Raider head coach Jack Del Rio) started the season but was injured and didn’t play real great through stretches. Purdue transfer Austin Appleby has started the last four games.
So what does that mean for Iowa? Well, for starters, the quarterback situation will likely not be resolved until bowl week. So it should be interesting.
But hey, a former Purdue quarterback potentially starting a bowl game for Florida against Iowa? That’s some weird “Twilight Zone” stuff, man.
Follow @JordyHansen for Iowa football news, updates, and analysis.
